What’s happening with PEDAL and Greener Leith’s wind turbine project?

Scottish Communities CAN asked PEDAL and Greener Leith to give us an update on what’s been happening with this project:

Just over two years ago, PEDAL and Greener Leith were awarded £83,000 as one of four winners out of nearly 1000 groups who entered Energyshare’s competition. The award was to take forward a community wind turbine project.

We’re pleased to say that we will soon be submitting an application for planning permission to build two wind turbines. Our original project aimed for a single turbine at Seafield Sewage Works in Edinburgh, but failed because landowners Scottish Water subsequently pulled out of the land deal they had promised us, preventing us from building it there.

However, we didn’t give up and eventually found another site. Our new project is located four kilometres south west of Inverness where we’re working to build two wind turbines of up to 800KWp capacity each. Wind resource measurement began on site on 1st June, and we are close to completing landscape / visual and ornithology studies. We aim to submit a full planning application to Highland Council in September.

Although the wind turbines will not now be built in Leith or Portobello, we hope community groups close to the site will become partners in the project, and we are offering them the chance become part owners. We want this to be a project that brings real environmental and financial benefits, not just to our own communities, but to those where the turbines will be located. We’ve already begun this process and are set to have a second meeting with representatives of the Dores & Essich community at the end of August.

The main benefits of the project over its 20 year lifetime would be:
• Cutting CO2 equivalent emissions by approximately 40,000 tonnes.
• A potential to generate £5.5 – £7million income for distribution by not-for-profit community groups to support sustainable community development initiatives.
• Inspire and educate other communities and hopefully trigger similar projects.

Although the proposed turbines are relatively small in comparison to most commercial projects, the financial benefits of a project on this scale can be significant.
We now have a project website at www.communityturbines.wordpress.com and you can download the project brochure by clicking or tapping here

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